Top 5 Difficulties of a self-taught Developer.

Hey everyone! Being a self taught developer is rough. We know that from experience. Not everything is there, and going place to place can get difficult. This brings us to our top 5 self-taught developer issues, and how we approach a solution to them. Thank you for watching, and if you prefer to read the transcript has been provided below!

OUTDATED INFO

Outdated Information is the first issue we run into. When it comes to learning C# you often find tutorials about specific genres. Things like “How to make a Platformer” are generally awesome content, but it doesn’t always include the latest methods to apply those concepts.

For example softwares such as Unity can apply character controllers internally, but an update in Unity may appear in making using the character controller obsolete, rendering the video useless for new viewers.

To avoid this, look for content that is about the code involved and less about using the software for workarounds. You can learn the software later, and focus on understanding the language.

BEING SPOONFED

When learning from others online It's common to be provided the solution without ever understanding the actual code and functionality behind it. When writing out the code they provide, stop and ask yourself, “Do I understand this line of code and what it’s doing?” or “Do I understand how I can take this code and apply it to other uses?”

If you say no to these questions, chances are at the end of the tutorial you will have a game that you don't understand anything about.

Try and look for people who provide methods that encourage research, define the language in its use, and avoid simply writing it out and telling you to follow along.

GET VALUABLE INFO

Content Quality is a very important part as well. We don’t mean camera quality and graphics with the perfect lighting. What we mean, is direct precise information.

They should talk only about what matters, and make sure there is clarity and value in their words. No one should go through the word “Um” more than the total amount of lessons you’re watching, and if it sounds like they don’t know what they’re doing it might be harder for you to catch on as they struggle to teach you.

High ratings doesn't always mean the best results. Go through the comments of the video to really see the honest feedback from the people using the tutorials. See if there is questions about the video that go unanswered to help you determine if the content in this video will just leave you with more questions.

FIND COMMUNITY

In all things we do in life, we need to communicate. Nothing is more important in learning development than finding a place to ask questions and get answers.

A common trend for online tutorials is to provide content only on the direct platform such as youtube, and never providing the opportunity for viewers to gather and discuss things further.

If you find an instructor that doesn't offer some kind of community in addition to their tutorial, you’re left with asking questions on youtube comments that will never see an answer. Check for things like Discords, or even websites like GameDevHQ.com for example, where people can collaborate, and learn from the same source material.

RESEARCH

We currently live in the information age. This is one of the best times in history to really go out and find what you’re looking for, and learn solely online.

Though when it comes to development, there are tons of places to go. With this, an issue is created where some locations don't have all the information you need which forces you to go to multiple locations to get information.

The advice I have for you in this, is to simply learn all the components of the c# language before you start your journey of determining how to apply them. Once you understand the core concepts of the C# language, you can then go anywhere on the internet and survive learning all of the different perspectives of how to apply them to your favorite game genres without having to bounce between a place that provides making an RPG, to another that explains how the code in that RPG works, or worse - an unfinished course.

OUR SOLUTION

While these are the top struggles we’ve seen people faced, it means we’ve worked on solutions. We’ve felt that the primary problem is actually understanding the components of C#. You see everyone using If statements, switches, loops, and you’re told this is how to implement them for building this RPG or Platformer game, but no one stops to just explain the code.

If you understood the use of the code, you can by default understand how they would be used for whatever genre you want to apply them too. It would also eliminate the need to go from tutorial to tutorial and be blindsided by incomplete content because you understand how the puzzle pieces fit in advance.

The idea of this eliminates so much time wasted trying to figure things out, and to ensure this is possible we’ve created the Unity C# Survival guide. In the survival guide we supply the understanding of each individual component of coding from Variables, Switch, Delegates and Event callback systems, and everything in between.

Use our survival guide to master the fundamentals, and reference back to anytime you get stuck. We’ve left a link for more information about the survival guide in the description below.

We hope you enjoyed this brief look into difficulties as a self taught developers, and that you find our solution valuable. Let us know in the comments what difficulties you’ve faced as a self taught developer, and we’re happy to assist you. Don’t forget to subscribe and we’ll see you at GameDevHQ.com for more tutorials, and events to help your game development journey.